Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Harman Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I know that this has been very disappointing news and that my hon. Friend has been very active on this matter. The work force and the local community have worked tirelessly to help the administrators to secure the long-term future of the refinery. We are keeping in close contact with the administrators, who are still looking at further options, and working with Thurrock council’s taskforce as well. The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry), has met representatives of the work force and local community. I will, of course, draw my hon. Friend’s remarks to the attention of the Prime Minister as well.

[Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab)]

May I join the Foreign Secretary in paying tribute to Lance Corporal James Ashworth of 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards and Corporal Alex Guy of 1st Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment? They died serving our country with the utmost bravery, and we join the Foreign Secretary in sending our deepest condolences to their families and friends.

We know that there is still a long way to go before the people of Burma get the democracy to which they are entitled, but the fact that progress has been made is due to the extraordinary commitment and courage of one woman who has endured more than two decades of house arrest. Will the Foreign Secretary join me in expressing our utmost admiration for Aung San Suu Kyi?

[Mr Hague]

I absolutely will, and I think it highly appropriate to raise this matter during Prime Minister’s Question Time. I believe that I was the first European Foreign Minister to visit Aung San Suu Kyi and to visit Burma at the beginning of the year, and I found her, not only in reputation but in substance, an inspirational figure.

As the right hon. and learned Lady says, there is still a long way to go, not only in bringing democracy to Burma but in ending ethnic conflicts, one of which is still going on in Kachin state. We look to the Government of Burma to continue to travel on this road and to release remaining political prisoners, and I think that across all parties we look forward to giving Daw Aung San Suu Kyi a tremendous welcome tomorrow.

[Ms Harman]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for his answer. He was right to visit Burma when he did. We support the suspension of sanctions on Burma, but will he reassure us that the position of the British Government will remain that sanctions will be re-imposed unless there is sustained progress towards democracy and the rule of law?

[Mr Hague]

That is very much our position, and I have said so in terms to the Foreign Minister of Burma. Indeed, we have argued in the European Union that sanctions and other restrictive measures should not be lifted unconditionally, but should be suspended so that they can be re-imposed if necessary and if progress comes to a stop. They have been suspended for 12 months, and we will of course continue to review progress throughout that period.

Having met the President of Burma on my visit, I believe that he is absolutely sincere in his intentions, but there will of course be elements in the Government of Burma who are not so enthusiastic about these changes and who will be alarmed by the success of Aung San Suu Kyi and her party in recent by-elections. We will keep up the pressure, as well as the welcome, for these changes.

[Ms Harman]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for that answer, and for his commitment to keeping up the pressure for progress. Let me now turn to domestic issues, and specifically to the national health service.

This week a survey showed that 90% of primary care trusts are restricting access to treatment because of the financial pressure that they are under. That will hit older people particularly. How can the Foreign Secretary justify an elderly person with cataracts in both eyes being told that they can have surgery in only one of them?

[Mr Hague]

It is totally unacceptable if trusts are rationing on the basis of financial considerations. The NHS medical director has written to trusts telling them that the criteria for decisions must be only clinical and not financial. If evidence is found that they are ignoring that, the Secretary of State can intervene. The Department of Health will look into any cases in which trusts are using financial conditions for the purpose of decisions. Allegations have been made about this issue before, including under the last Government. The Department of Health is very clear about what it will do, and that should be welcomed throughout the House.

[Ms Harman]

But there is evidence and the Foreign Secretary is still not acting. This is not just about cataract operations: 125 different treatments are being rationed on grounds of cost, including hip and knee replacements. What does the Foreign Secretary say to an elderly patient who needs a hip replacement—“Wait in pain” or “Try to pay and go private”? What does he say?

[Mr Hague]

I say three things. First, I say what I said a moment ago when answering the right hon. and learned Lady’s question about rationing. Secondly, I say that arbitrarily restricting access to operations was not just happening under the last Government, but allowed under the last Government. In 2007, patients in Suffolk had to wait for a minimum of 14 weeks for routine surgery, and York NHS Trust was told by its primary care trust not to operate on non-urgent cases until they had waited for a minimum of 20 weeks.

Thirdly, I say to any of those individuals that their GP—their doctor—should be at work tomorrow, and not on strike. We on this side of the House encourage those doctors to go to work, and I hope that the right hon. and learned Lady and all those on her side of the House will say clearly today that those doctors should be at work tomorrow.

[Ms Harman]

We do not want patients to suffer, so we do not want the GPs to be going on strike, but we are proud of what we did in the NHS—more doctors, more nurses and cutting the waiting lists. It is always the same: Labour builds up the NHS and the Tories drag it down.

Today, the Foreign Secretary is saying that he is 100% behind the Government’s health plans, but it is a different story in his own constituency. Last month, he took to the streets, marching in protest against the NHS cuts. Let us remind ourselves of what the Prime Minister said about midwives. Just before the general election, the Prime Minister wrote for The Sun newspaper—because, professionally of course, they were all in it together—and said that

“we will increase the number of midwives by 3,000.”

Can the Foreign Secretary confirm that they have broken their promise on midwives?

[Mr Hague]

That was a long question, although I congratulate the right hon. and learned Lady on not having the shadow Chancellor here today, which does help everyone to hear and concentrate. [Interruption.] The Chancellor is at the G20; the shadow Chancellor is presumably doing another opinion poll on what people think of him—and by the way, we could have told him that for nothing. [Laughter.] More value under the Conservatives.

On the questions that the right hon. and learned Lady asked, I am glad that she says that GPs should be at work tomorrow. She should tell that to her own spokesman, the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), who said that she had “a lot of sympathy” with the British Medical Association and that there would be a lot of public support for the action it is taking. So there is a clear division across the Floor of the House.

It is perilous for the right hon. and learned Lady to go into the affairs of another constituency, because what is happening in my constituency is nothing to do with funding or health reforms. But I will tell her all about that separately, if she would like. She says that Labour Members are proud, but we are proud of what has happened in the NHS. Average waiting times for both in-patients and out-patients are lower than at the last general election; the best performance ever has now been attained for patients waiting after 18 weeks to be treated; the total number of qualified clinical staff is higher than at the election; there are 3,900 more doctors since the election; and hospital infections are at their lowest level since surveillance of them began.

[Ms Harman]

And he never answered the question about midwives, because before the election the then Leader of the Opposition was all “Yes we Cam,” but as soon as he became Prime Minister it is “No we can’t.” Services rationed, patients suffering and public satisfaction at a new low—that is the Tories on the NHS. The Prime Minister once told us that he could sum up his priorities in three letters—NHS. Isn’t it more like “LOL”?

[Mr Hague]

It obviously took a long time to think of that one. I have set out the achievements of the Government on the NHS. Even the King’s Fund, in its latest report, which has sometimes been quoted by the Opposition, says:

“There is no evidence of a…decline in service quality or performance”.

It also says:

“infection rates have not noticeably deteriorated—remaining relatively stable in…most measures…or, in the case of MRSA and C difficile, reducing.”

These are important achievements in the health service, and they are a contrast with the Opposition health spokesman saying in June 2010:

“It is irresponsible to increase NHS spending in real terms”.

They are also a contrast with the number of managers doubling under the Labour party; a contrast with Labour’s last year in power, when the number of NHS managers rose six times as fast as the number of nurses: and a huge contrast with the situation in Wales, where Labour is cutting NHS spending.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Harman Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

May I thank my hon. Friend for that helpful suggestion? He knows that I share his views about the need for a tough response to crime. The challenge is going to be delivering that tough response at a time when the last Government left us absolutely no money. What I would say to him is that we have to address the failures in the system: the fact that half of all prisoners are on drugs; the fact that more than one in 10 are foreign nationals who should not be here in the first place; and the fact that 40% commit another crime within one year of leaving prison. That is the record of failure that we have inherited, and it is the record of failure that we have to reform.

[Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab)]

I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to the Royal Marine of 40 Commando who died on Monday and to the two soldiers from the 1st Battalion the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment who died yesterday. We honour their sacrifice, and we remember all our servicemen and women who are fighting so bravely for our country.

Although this morning saw the unemployment claimant count fall, unemployment is still too high. Behind the figures are real people and real concerns. Can the Prime Minister promise that none of the policies that he will put in his Budget next week will put more people out of work?

[The Prime Minister]

First, I agree with the right hon. and learned Lady that any rise in unemployment is a tragedy, not least for those people desperately looking for work who want to put food on the table for their families. The figures this morning give a mixed picture. On the one hand, the claimant count is down; on the other hand, the International Labour Organisation measure of unemployment is up by 23,000. What I can say to her is that we will bring in our Work programme as soon as we can, which will be the biggest, boldest scheme for getting people back to work, and everything that will be—[Interruption.] Hon. Members should remember why we have had record unemployment in this country: because of the record of failure that we inherited. What I can tell the right hon. and learned Lady is that everything that we do in the forthcoming Budget will be about giving this country a strong economy with sustainable public finances and clearing up the mess left by the person sitting next to her, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling).

[Ms Harman]

In fact, ILO unemployment is down on last month, and the Prime Minister should welcome that. He has criticised our plans, but the Office for Budget Responsibility says this week that, under Labour’s plans, unemployment is set to fall. Will he promise that he will not do anything in his Budget next week that will cause unemployment to rise? We are talking about his policies in his Budget.

[The Prime Minister]

First, the right hon. and learned Lady is just wrong about the figures. The ILO figures are up, and the claimant count is down—

[Ms Harman]

indicated dissent.

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, they are; if she looks at the figures, she will discover that. She asked about the Budget. I have to say that I am still waiting for the Budget submission from the Labour party—[Interruption.] Let me tell hon. Members why. Before the last election, Labour set out £50 billion of spending reductions, including £18 billion of reductions in capital spending, but it did not set out where one penny piece of that money was coming from. So, while Labour Members are looking forward to the Budget next week and asking what we are going to do, perhaps they could have the decency to tell us what they would have done.

[Ms Harman]

The Prime Minister did not listen to what I said about ILO unemployment, which is that it is down on last month, and he did not answer the question either. He has already cut the future jobs fund, and he will not guarantee to drop policies that would push unemployment up. He talks about the deficit, but how does putting more people on the dole help to get the deficit down?

[The Prime Minister]

Perhaps the right hon. and learned Lady should consider this statement about the importance of sorting out the budget deficit—[Interruption.] Hon. Members ought to listen to this:

“Public finances must be sustainable…If they are not, the poor, the elderly, and those on fixed incomes who depend on public services will suffer most.”—[Official Report, 2 July 1997; Vol. 315, c. 303.]

Who said that? It was the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), when he used to talk some sense, in the old days.

[Ms Harman]

As the Prime Minister is talking about new politics and transparency, will he confirm that the Office for Budget Responsibility has forecast that, under the plans that we put in place, unemployment and borrowing will be lower than we forecast in our Budget, not only this year but next year and the year after? Will he confirm that, and will he welcome it?

[The Prime Minister]

First, should the right hon. and learned Lady not welcome the fact that these things are now independently determined, rather than fiddled in the Treasury? What the Office for Budget Responsibility shows is that the structural deficit is going to be £12 billion higher, and that the growth forecast that the Chancellor of the Exchequer produced at the time of the Budget was a complete fiction.

[Ms Harman]

I can answer the Prime Minister’s question, although, to be fair, he is supposed to be answering mine. Yes, I do support the OBR, but he will not say whether he welcomes the forecast that I set out earlier. It is clear what he is doing: he is talking down the economy and the public finances in order to soften up the public for the cuts that he wants to make. Does he not realise that, in doing that, he is also undermining business confidence? How can that be right?

[The Prime Minister]

What the right hon. and learned Lady and other Labour Members need to remember is this: never mind talking the economy down, they did the economy down. They left this country with a £155 billion deficit—the biggest deficit in our peacetime history. They are the ones who let the banks go rip. They told us that they had abolished boom and bust, yet they gave us the biggest boom and the biggest bust. They were the ones who told us we were going to lead the world out of recession; our recession was longer and deeper than others. They have not told us about one single penny of the £50 billion that they were going to cut—not one penny. Do you know where they ought to start? Why not start with an apology?

[Ms Harman]

If the Prime Minister thought that our spending plans were so bad, why did he back them right up until the end of 2008, praising them as “tough”? One minute he is praising them, then he is calling them reckless. This is not so much magic numbers as the magic roundabout that he has been on. We all agree that the deficit needs to come down, but will he promise that in the Budget next week he will not hit the poorest and he will not throw people out of work? Does he agree with us that unemployment is never a price worth paying?

[The Prime Minister]

The figures were wrong, and the jokes were not much good either. Never mind the magic roundabout, what we are all enjoying on the Government Benches is the Labour leadership election, although it is by day beginning to look more like a Star Trek convention—beam me up! What the right hon. and learned Lady has to answer is this: before the election, her Government set out £50 billion of cuts, but not a single penny was aligned to a single programme—not one pence of the £18 billion they were cutting from capital spending was aligned to one single bit of capital expenditure. Before she starts challenging us about cuts, they should first of all apologise for the mess they have left; second of all, tell us where the cuts were going to come to under their Government; and third of all, recognise that the responsible party, in coalition, is dealing with the deficit and the mess that they left behind.